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UD 014 622 the New Negro and the Ideological Origins of the Self DOCUMENT RESUME ED 098 272 , UD 014 622 AUTHOR Butler, Johnnella; Namable, Manning TITLE The New Negro and the IdeologicalOrigins of the 2ntegrationist Movement. PUB DATE 25 Oct 74 NOTE 14p.; Paper presented at the AnnualConvention of the Association for the Study of Afro -American. Life and History (Philadelphia, Pennsylvania,October 1974) EDRS PRICE MF-$O.75 HC-$1.50 PLUS POSTAGE DESCRIPTORS Acculturation; *Activism; African AmericanStudies; Civil Rights; *Literary Criticism;'*Literary History; Negro History; *Negro Literature;Negro Organizations; Political Issues; *RacialIdtegration; Racism; Twentieth Century Literature ABSTRACT The literature of the NegroRenaissance needs to be re-examined frol the purview of the pervasiveness of theconflicts apparent in such literary,themes as the tragic mulatto, theglorified and idealistic Africanpasi, the alienation from American culture, and an impliedi, and at times overt,self-hatred. The Renaissance literature reflects the reality of theNegro as he indeed perceived himself regardless of color- -thereality of the psycifological mulatto. Histroically, black scholarsmust re-evaluate the originsof the integrationist-movement. Even nowmost refuse to askthemselves if it was relevant to theAfrj.can-American working class laborers and farmers whether or not a -few Negroesgot *equal opportunity" to become part of white America.Literary and other cultural aspectsof the black American experiende mistbe employed in the historiography of analyzing such questions as:Who really wanted this strugglefor total assimilation in whiteculture and economics? Why is itthat the Negro intellectuals, untilrecently, refused to be associatedwith anything *black** "revolutionary," or"African?" Unfortunately, present-day New Negroes, building onthe faulty foundations of the 1920os, retard advancement of the race anddeny the establishment of a legitimateblack historical' tradition andblack literary tradition. (Author/JM) E. A rrr.,s Ii!nit te: .: . r U S DEPARTMENT OF MEAL TN EDUCATION & WELFARE NATIONAL INSTITUTEOF- EDUCATION 00CUME at EN 14 Piva DuCF EACTL As Nit tvf0 p 'OM Till PE NSON Uk Okt.ANqA ()% lll,t Cpy A T T PO. A My 01,,,,oh,,, CI DoNo, to , y Pki S 04 fir tAt %: %."'1 I DUCA T P4," I.1 +ui v THE NEW NEGRO AND THE IDEOLOGICAL ORIGINS OF THE INTEGRATIONIST MOVEMENT JOHNNELLA BUTLER, INSTRUCTOR, AFRO-AMERICANLITERATURE DEPA4TMENT OF AFRO- AMERICAN STUDIES SMITH COLLEGE, NORTHAMPTON, MASSACHUSETTS MANNING MARABLE, LECTURER, AFRO-AMERICANHISTORY DEPARTMENT OF AFRO-AMERICAN'SUTDIES SMITH COLLEGE, NORTHAMPTON, MASSACHUSETTS PAPER PRESENTED AT THE, ASSOCIATION FOR THE STUDY OF AFRO-AMERICAN LIFE AND HISTORY CONVENTION 25 OCTOBER, 1974, PHILADELPHIA, PENNSYLVANIA I. seek A integration of % negroes with black people. Don L. Lee, "pew Antegrationists" 2 The Negro Renaissance literature and the ideology of militant int-gra- tionists of the 1920s formed the basis of the first organized,large-scale movement for. assimilation. The Negro intellectuals in literature and politics mutually reinforced each other; they were proud of being Negroes, yet they desperately sought a role within American society.Their philosophy produced d contradictions and denials of their African heritage and theirquasi-African culture.The integration movement of the 1920s and the subsequent Civil Rights movement of the 1960s, as a result of.the inherent contradictions anddenials, served as a cathartic release, thereby negating thepotentiaLfor forging a meaningful political, economic, and artistic existence for theAfrican-American. The black people who survived the rigors of Southern slavery were more African than Anglo-Saxon.Parents and grandparents, by recalling stories and images of Africa, fostered a worldview grounded in a communalspirit, which the system of slavery did not obliterate.Blacks retained stable extended family relations that existed with great difficulty on theplantations:The agrarian skills of planting, cattleraising, and fishing whichblacks as.slaves 2 had instructed their masters remained with African4mericans. Black agricul- turalists united in political andeconomic movements after Reconstruction to 2 .; oppose rising racism and to gainself-sufficiency.Black peasants of the 1890s who farmed in Dixie's cotton belt dreamed ofowning their own land and of con- trolling their own-political systems as theirgrandparents had inAfrica.3 The v. wide support for Pap Singleton's andHenry McNeal Turner's black nationalist 4 propdsals is an indication of the Africaness ofblack people. The ascendance of a capitalist political-economy,racial repression, and the influence of urban society upon Americanlife did not destroy the African ideals and spirit ofblack people. In increasing numbers, blacks I ) worked in miningand transportation industriesin the South's new industrial communities. Black men and women sold their labor power to a newbusiness 5 elite who desired maximized profits under the mostbrutal conditions. In the urban North, whites aggressively forcedAfrican-Americans into ghettos, nullified 6 their civil rights and extended "Jim.Crow" t oschools and public accommodations. The "Southern Way" of race relations rapidly becamethe "American Way."7Unlike other immigrant working-class minorities, theAfrican-American did not lose his rural to urban life and labor. - culture during the immediate transition from Some social institutions, like the black caurch, wereless influential within Ns urban communities than they had been in theSouth; however, in many Northern working class areas, despite harsh economic andracial pressures, the black family did not disintegrate. Work habits, family patterns, music, and other elements of culture retained the Africancontinuum.Black laborers clung to precapitalist attitudes and concepts, rejectingthe lifestyle of the modern 8 white worker. African aspects of black culture and white racistrestrictions en- 4 couraged many African-Americans to advocateself-help and nationalistic ideol- ogies. Behind the rhetoric of black accommodationand political moderation, Booker Washington sought to create independentblack social and economic BEST CerY 117!LACIY 3 institutions.Thl supporters of his Negro Business League were not wedded to the white community asjthe free Negroes ofFrederick Dougiass's era had been. Blackcapitalism, grounded in African-American self-help efforts, was a logical, Cy although ultimately self-destructive, program ofconservative'proteat in a 9 bourgeois society. In a similar but more militant fashion, theAfiican- . American supporters of Marcu; Gervey'urged blackd to associatethemselves ti spiritually with Africa. Like the Negro Business League, Garvey's Negro Factories Corpora' lon served to support bla l.petty bourgeois efforts of self- 10 sUfficiency. Both Garlkey and Washington wt: proud of their blackness; both \ men were able to generateAfrican prpest !ements in this country and in, . Africa itself.ParticipatiOn in American society was secondary. Their primary 11 efforts were geared to the immediate needs of theAfrican-American community. Leading critics of Washington and Garvey repudiated thetactics of self-help and the principles of domesticblack nationalism and voluntary segre- gation.In 1903, W.E.B. DuBois observed thatWashington's program waa opposed to the "ideal of ultimate freedom andassimilation" which Frederick Douglass had chaMpioned. His Souls of Black Folk stated persuasively thatblacks owed. as much to whiteAmerica as they did to their motherland; however, hefurther stated that blacks should "not AfricanizeAmerica, for America has too much to teach the world and Africa." America, according to DuBois, had given the world a new man, the Negro, who was neither black norwhite. "One ever feels his two-nesst" DuBois stated, "an American, aNegro; two souls, two thoughts, two unreconciled strivings; two warringideals in orie dark body. ." Beyond his call for academic education and a"talented-tenth," DuBois urged blacks to work for "the greater ideals of the American Republic. We fought their battles, shared their sorrow,Emil mingled our blood with theirs. ." Arguing that the Negro should be proud of hisAfrican past, but should also determinedly seek integration as a meansto ultimate freedom, DuBois asked, 4. "Would America have been AmeriCa'without her Negropeople?" To DuBois, African- American leaders during the slave revolts and throughouthistory sought chiefly' "ultimate assimilation through self assertion. .'. ."The Negro. was certainly 12 white and American as well as black. The Negro Renaissance, the first' recognized and massive effort of African-Americans to define, analyze, and criticize the race'srelationship to ?- American society, primarily accepted and became-the logicalextension pf DuBois' stated contradiction as reflected in AlainLockes concept of the New Negro. It was 'the business of the New Negro who had shakenoff the "aunt" and "uncle" stereotypes to capitalize upon the similarconditions of his brothers and, glorying in theirdi4erse consciousness, become Americanized. The assumption of this posture placed the African-Americp in theposition of reactor, and seldom, if ever, as an initiator of action.He became, to paraphrase author Ralph Ellison, invisible to white America, whoby virtue of their failure of recognition are sleepwalkers unaware of the subjected,hidden potency of. the invisible people except through theApression of rage aghinst a greater 13 invisibility. The writers of the Renaissance;in conveying the people, life-style, aspirations, scenes,
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